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Hearthstone’s Balance Patch destroys Giggling Inventor, Standard Druid Untouched

Hearthstone revealed its upcoming balance patch for October 18th, showing nerfs to Giggling Inventor, Mana Wyrm, and Aviana. While these changes were necessary, a lot of strong cards, specifically Druid class cards such as Ultimate Infestation, Wild Growth, Spreading Plague, and Branching Paths remained untouched. So while Druid is affected by the Aviana nerf in Wild, it is generally the same as the most played class in standard, which has been upsetting fans across Twitter and Facebook. Blizzard recently came out saying that they liked the state of the meta and that Inventor wouldn’t receive a nerf, but it was revealed today that they went back on their previous sentiments. While Mana Wyrm posed a large threat in Tempo Mage, it begs the question as to why this card took so long to get nerfed. Was Tempo Mage really the deck creating the most lopsided plays on ladder? A lot of players, myself included, have stated that instead of increasing the cards mana cost, reducing its health to 2 would make it easier to remove while also giving it strong usage with early spells. Aviana Kun combos destroyed decks in Wild, so her change was understandable, but why focus on a Wild card when numerous standard Druid cards are extremely popular and also displaying strong results? The destruction of Giggling Inventor now removes the play of Blood Knight and Mossy Horror, so it does raise questions as to how the meta will shift, perhaps in a much more aggressive direction. Needless to say that for 7 mana, Inventor will no longer see play, so decks such as Quest Rogue, Token Druid, and Midrange Shaman will be taking big hits. With that being said, decks such as Zoolock and Odd Paladin will be seeing more play in the near future.  

Sony Looking For New Marketing Applicants For Their Next Console

It seems that Sony is already hard at work for their next console with the recent discovery of backward compatibility support for the unnamed piece of hardware. In a recent LinkedIn job description, it looks that Sony is in-search for new members for the marketing team for the assumed PlayStation 5. The job posting asks for a Senior Product Manager, which will give responsibilities such as translating product strategy, developing products, and managing a workflow for the products campaign. Stated in the job description it tells to “own the roadmap for next generation PlayStation campaign.” Though this confirms even more that there is a new console on the way from the Japan-based company, we still have no official name for what this might be nor when we could expect to see when this product might be available for consumer purchase. As it was revealed that we could have another handheld portable device from Sony previously, that could be what’s referenced in the job posting. Speaking about this hypothetically, we actually might not see another portable console in the near future. The PlayStation Vita compared to its counterparts from Nintendo underperformed greatly. With the recent announcement that Sony will discontinue the PlayStation Vita next year, it won’t be a surprise if we don’t see another attempt from the tech company in the near future. When we could expect a full reveal from Sony could be expected as soon as 2019. With the PlayStation Experience out of the picture for 2018, the company can work on new projects for the upcoming console along with when we will officially see it. Source: LinkedIn

Rockstar Games Had Developers Work 100-hour Weeks For RDR2

The upcoming title from Rockstar Games has to be one of the most look forward titles that will be launching this Fall. With many eager to see what’s been improved and added from the 2010 Red Dead Redemption, there hasn’t been much that the studio revealed about the game since the announcement nearly two years ago. Publisher Co-Founder recently spoke with entertainment outlet Vulture on how the game came to be with its release date being only two weeks from now. Rockstar Games’ Dan Houser told in the interview that the development team for the western title have worked “100-hour weeks” only in 2018. Known as ‘Crunch’, developers would work longing hours developing titles towards the game’s completion. This practice has been present with several games throughout the industry, most recently we discovered that following the layoffs for Telltale Games. In the interview posted, an email from the publisher was also mentioned revealing that the time the developers worked the stated hours, is the most that they were urged when developing a game. We’ve poured everything we have into [Red Dead Redemption 2]. We have really pushed ourselves as hard as we can. As this news broke out, many reacted negatively to discovering the conditions that those at Rockstar Games have worked to making Red Dead Redemption 2 a reality. Soon after the backlash from the internet, Houser replied stating that the extreme working conditions only lasted for three weeks and only expanded to the game’s “senior writing team, which consists of four people, Mike Unsworth, Rupert Humphries, Lazlow and [Houser],”. As this is reassuring that the time-consumed process lasted less than a month, it should be taken to awareness that this practice is well and present within the industry. Many developers are left stressed from the exceeding work hours, which can result to many health risking diseases from the game crunch. Houser followed up with a comment from being under fire, “we obviously don’t expect anyone else to work this way”. Referencing to the bigger head count development team. Looking ahead, it’s undetermined if this incident will happen again for the publisher’s studio. As we have discovered the possible casting calls for Bully 2, things might change for how development time works within Rockstar Games. Red Dead Redemption 2 will be available for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 26, 2018. Source: Vulture

Review: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Assassins Creed Odyssey is the latest, and certainly the biggest entry in the long running Ubisoft franchise. Initially I was skeptical about playing another, massive Assassin’s Creed game so soon after 2017’s excellent Origin’s had completely revamped the Assassins Creed formula. Now that I’ve had my time with it I must say I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Odyssey swaps out the stoic, revenge driven Bayek with two character choices. Alexios, or Kassandra. Brother and sister who are the grandchildren of the great Spartan general Leonidas. Yes for the first time you have to make a choice of who you play as, which means the other character gets a different role to play in the story. Once you make that choice you begin your adventure as a lowly mercenary on a small island for the games long prologue sequence. I think I was six hours in before I saw the title card pop. Much of the general flow and core gameplay has been lifted directly from Origins. It took me no time to get comfortable with movement, combat and the moment to moment to gameplay. Most of the big changes are to the game systems you are interacting with.  Assassins Creed Odyssey takes place during the Peloponnesian War in the year 430 BC. The war between Sparta and Athens is more than just a setting, as most of the open world systems are impacted by this war. As a mercenary you can fight for either side, and every enemy you kill, outpost you complete and national treasure you steal will diminish that nations control over that territory. I’m of two minds on this. On one hand it helps add context to all of the tried and true mechanics carried over from every Assassin Creed game. Now there is a legitimate reason to tackle all of the forts and small bases that litter the open world. Every action you do has an impact and seeing the bar representing a nations power dwindle as you sneak, stab and pillage is satisfying. On the other hand, it doesn’t take long to realize the war between both nations is nothing more than yet another “videogamey” mechanic. In reality the only significant gameplay difference you get when one side rules or another is a color change on enemy armor and the flags hanging off of enemy forts. It just doesn’t matter in the end, which breaks the illusion completely. Naval gameplay is also back from Black Flag and is even more over the top than it used to be. You have a unique ship that acts as your home base. It can be upgraded, you can recruit mercenaries to join your crew, and it’s home to some great character moments as you sail from island to island with your characters and his or her trusty second mate. Also, boat drifting is a thing. Like I said, over the top. On top of all of that is a half baked attempt at the Shadow of Mordor  Nemesis system. Every person who plays will get a set of mercenaries that are randomly generated. They roam the open world and will hunt you down when you act out or commit crimes. They don’t live up to their potential in any way shape or form. They show up, and they usually just start attacking you. They don’t have unique dialogue, or  intro’s where they taunt you like the Orcs in Mordor. They amount to another randomly named person to either kill or recruit, and that’s kind of the end of it. In all honesty, I can describe all of Odyssey like that. The core game is very strong. Visually it’s fantastic, the story is fun and the combat and skill tree system is really well developed. It leans in a more heavy RPG direction than even Origins did, with a full loot system for armor and weapons this time and that part of the game is very satisfying to engage with. The problem is all of the layers, and layers, they add on top of everything. It’s so much, and even though the game never breaks under the weight of all of those systems, it never digs deep enough to make any one of them feel like they’re worth investing time in. The sheer size of the world, and the insane amount of quests the game has can be daunting. It’s a shame too because the story and the characters are so strong. They feature narrative driven conversations that finally allows me to relive the glory days of being a renegade like in the Mass Effect series. The problem is just quantity. The game also has a huge layer of micro-transactions all over the place. In my experience I never needed to use any of them, and didn’t halt my progress through the game. They exist to merely shortcut the player, and although the practice isn’t something I agree with, it’s also hard to raise a pitchfork over it because it never became an issue for me in my time with Odyssey. Somewhere at the core of Assassins Creed Odyssey is a great game, but it needs and editor to go in and trim off around 40 percent of the bloat of it so it can truly shine. Despite these problems I did enjoy my time with Odyssey, and I’m eager to see how it develops over it’s lifetime. Alexios is my favorite character in the franchise now. All of the new systems while shallow, do add context to all of the random open world hi-jinks and for myself that makes everything you do feel just a bit more satisfying than they ever have before. It goes a long way, and it’s why despite it’s issues I found myself wanting to play more and more of it.

Japanese Player Gachikun Wins CPT Asia Regional Finals, Advances To Capcom Cup

Japanese Street Fighter V specialist Kanamori Tsunehori better known as Gachikun has dominated the Asia Regional finals of Capcom Pro Tour last weekend at South East Asia Major event in Singapore. Gachikun managed to plow through seven of the best Street Fighter specialists in Asia without losing a single match. His thirst for victory led to the elimination of his fellow Japanese player CYG|Fuudo, Singapore’s very own RZR|Xian before moving to the Grand Finals. Gachikun with his character Rashid faced 2017 SFV EVO Champ Tokido with his main Akuma during the Grand Finals. What was previously thought of as fierce battle turned into a very short one with Gachikum taking down Tokido in a punishing 3-0 victory. Gachikum is the third confirmed qualifier for the prestigious Capcom Cup with the first spot allotted to the 2017 Champ Menard from the Dominican Republic and the second by NASR|Angry Bird who won the European Regional Finals. The next regional finals will take place in Sao Paulo Brazil for the LATAM region will take place in Sao Paulo Brazil on November 2-4 followed by the North America Regional Finals at Red Bull Conquest in Washington DC on November 17-18, 2018. Capcom Cup 2018 will take place at the Luxor Hotel’s Esports Arena in  Las Vegas, NV on December 14-16, 2018 with a prize pool of $250,000 + DLC Prize Pool Bonus.  “Capcom Pro Tour Asia Regional Finals Grand Finals” Source: Capcom Pro Tour, Capcom Fighters